A Matter of Life and Death
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Learn more about our Beyond Zero vision for the future at toyota.com slash beyondzero. I love working at Yale and living in New Haven, Connecticut. But being a happiness expert means I travel a lot. Just in this upcoming semester, I'll be headed to Nebraska, California, and Amsterdam. But while I'm away, my home is usually just stuck there empty. I hate to think of my lovely yard just sitting there empty while my entire house could be earning me some extra cash. If you travel a lot,

should consider hosting on Airbnb. Maybe you live in a different area for part of the year because you're a snowbird, or perhaps just due to your work commitments. You could host on Airbnb to make some extra cash. Your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Here's to the magic of summer, to ice cold lemonade on a hot afternoon, to the smell of burgers on the grill. The Chinette brand is all about maximizing fun this summer and minimizing cleanup hassles. That's why Chinette Classic, Crystal, and Comfort Collections are part of every summer gathering.

Pushkin.

The destination is on your right. Somerville Public Library, East Branch. Arrived. I'm headed to my local library, but not to check out a book. I'm on a quest. A quest that has obsessed philosophers, poets, and mystics for ages. I'm on a quest to confront...

Do you know where the Death Cafe is happening? Yes, right over there. I'm about to attend what's known as a Death Cafe. Death cafes are small community get-togethers in which total strangers meet to talk candidly about their inevitable demise, usually over tea and cake. There were 10 people at this particular Death Cafe, all first-time attendees, just like me.

We discussed how we'd like to spend our final seconds alive, what we wanted done with our bodies after we passed, and the fears we had about dying.

It was intense. There were some laughs, but also tears. Were you scared before you came? I was scared. I was like, what is this going to be? I was more curious than scared. I was actually very excited. I was thinking about this last night. I'm like, I'm pumped for the death cafe. Yeah, I think I was, I just, I like doing weird experiences. This is a weird thing I signed up for. And it was nice. I got a lot of good ideas on where I'd like to be when I die. I never thought about that. Same. Yeah, it was nice to just be able to talk about death in a very...

open environment. There's cake. And there was cake. That was good cake. I left the death cafe with a huge slice of red velvet cake and a lot to think about. You see, I really, really hate talking about, planning for, or even contemplating my own death. So I may as well come clean. I, Dr. Lori Santos, am a thanatophobe.

What is thanatophobia, you ask? Well, thanatophobia, which I think I'm saying right, is the fear of death. I find the fact that I'm going to die not just a downer, but deeply terrifying. The thought that I and all the people I love won't be around someday makes me feel literally nauseous.

And this inability to confront death winds up being pretty bad for my happiness. First off, I'm super health-anxious. I'm convinced that every bump and weird bodily sensation is some terminal illness just waiting to take me out.

which is not a fun way to live. My thanatophobia causes other problems, too. I'm scared to look at my retirement savings because inevitably this question comes up: So how long do you think this money needs to last? AKA, when do you think you're gonna die? Ah! And surveys show I'm not the only one spooked by dying. On average, people report death as their number one terror, which beats out even public speaking. Our collective denial of death means that most of us don't do what we need to do to get ready for it.

Only about half of people in the U.S. today have life insurance, and only a quarter have a living will. Now you might be thinking, well, death sucks. Is it so bad that we're a little bit thanatophobic? Unfortunately, it turns out that avoiding our mortality may be much worse for our happiness than we realize. Because the science shows that facing up to the shortness of life may be the best way to make sure that your short life is one that you actually live well. Hence my quest to stop hiding and to finally meet death head on.

Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind points us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. Hello. Well, good morning. Good morning. Hello. It's so good to meet you, Laurie. Hello. Psychologist Jodi Wellman does not share my all-consuming fear of death.

Is it thanatophobia? Is that how you say it? Thanatophobia. I say thanatophobia, but... Thanatophobia. I have really terrible thanatophobia. I'm like really spooked about death. It's one of the reasons I was so excited to get your book. Jodi's book is called You Only Die Once. How to make it to the end with no regrets. You Only Die Once is a celebration of all things thanatophilia. Embracing the fact that your time is limited.

I enjoyed the book a lot, but reading it did make me feel a little queasy. Am I striving to make us barf in our mouths while we think about this? No. If I know that it's going to cause just enough existential, like, poking of the ribs, oh, then I get so excited. Jodi's path to thanatophilia began with a tragedy. Her mother died at only 58 years old, and Jodi was stuck cleaning out her apartment. For me, it was like this...

I don't know, a show and tell in a way of all of her dreams and hopes and plans and intentions that she didn't execute. So I kind of call it like the graveyard of hopes and dreams. Jodi found unfinished drafts of books, business plans that had never been implemented, and long lists of cool stuff that her mother had wanted to do but never got around to doing.

It all hit Jodi like a ton of bricks. Oh my gosh, I don't want to get to the end and have all of these manuscripts not sent out and plans and hopes that I didn't try. You know, that felt more fearful to me than anything. Jodi wasn't exactly enjoying her life at the time. She was very much in danger of repeating her mother's pattern. By this point, I was officially disenchanted at work.

But I didn't really know what to do about it, so here I am going about my work and I stapled a couple pages together and my stapler ran out. And so I went to the storeroom, I loaded up the stapler, and this thought occurred to me as I was putting the row of staples into the stapler. I said, "I better not be here by the time this row of staples runs out." So Jodi had finally set a time limit for taking action. She was sure she'd be making some big changes.

Well, soon, right? But then one fateful day, the stapler ran out. Again. And Jodi was still in her job with no plan B. And I felt so...

Drop kicked. That's when Jodi had an epiphany. Wait a sec. You can't just expect stuff to happen to you to be miraculously like helicoptered out of your average job into something that's going to inspire you. You need to do something about it. And do something Jodi did. She quit her boring job and entered a master's program in positive psychology.

During her studies, she became fascinated with one topic in particular, the concept of death awareness, the act of intentionally thinking about your mortality. It's a practice that the ancients called memento mori. It's the Latin phrase that means remember that we must die. Memento mori has roots in religion and philosophy, but it was also expressed through art and fashion. And Jodi has lovingly adopted these traditions. She wears black jewelry and draws cartoons of the Grim Reaper.

Jodi's favorite possession is a tarnished gold coin engraved with the text of that Latin motto. Whenever Jodi stumbles across the coin in her purse, she ritualistically says, I am going to die soon. It's just that little subtle reminder that says, oh, yeah, right, we're temporary. It may sound morbid, but the science suggests that Jodi might be onto something.

Researchers have studied what happens when people come dangerously close to the end. Folks with fatal cancers who suddenly got better or survivors of terrible car accidents. It's like they put new glasses on and they can see things with clarity that we don't because we're just sweating the small stuff all freaking day long. Whereas they have this ability to say that little email that I haven't answered yet. In the grand scheme of things, just lucky to be alive. That doesn't matter. This does. And one thing that really matters to people who've nearly died are their friends and family.

People who face death make time for those that matter and get more discerning about those that don't. You enliven me, I'm going to spend more time with you. You de-energize me, I'm going to opt to spend less or no time with you. So there's that refinement of the way our time is spent. Brushes with mortality also cause us to help others more often, a practice that lots of research shows is a great way to improve your well-being. It's 2021, and Russell Lowe is lying in a California hospital bed.

Russell was a physician, but this time he's the one in need of urgent care. Russell contracted an infection, a bad one. His medical team wasn't sure he would make it. Eventually, the doctors got the infection under control, but they told Russell just how close he'd come to checking out for good. Russell's near-death experience shook him, but rather than turning inward, he connected with the nurses who'd been at his side throughout the entire ordeal. He began learning about the financial hardships they faced while training to help people just like him.

This was my opportunity to live my life differently, to give back to the people who are helping me. So Russell set up a scholarship fund at Cal State San Marcos to give students the resources they need to become nurses. His ordeal taught him to help pay it forward. Stories like this happen all the time, but it turns out you don't need an actual near-death experience to change your life. Research shows you can use your imagination. In one study, psychologists told people to vividly imagine a near-death scenario.

like waking up in a smoke-filled room and realizing your house is on fire. Subjects were then invited to play a game that involved keeping a stash of money for themselves or donating it to help other players. People who thought about scary moments before the game behaved more generously. They also experienced more gratitude than those that didn't engage in a morbid reflection. And you don't even need to get that morbid to start seeing some benefits. In another experiment, college seniors were reminded just how little time they had left at university.

Afterwards, they reported higher levels of happiness all the way up to graduation. And why was that? Well, seniors who got the college's short memo wind up packing more fun activities in during their final months than seniors who didn't get a reminder. When time is short, we force ourselves to finally get around to all the stuff we care about.

We recognize we don't have forever to complete that business plan or screenplay, which motivates our brains to get over all the usual doubts and actually take action. We have nothing to lose and life's too short to not do the thing that we might want to do. All this was sounding great in theory, but...

I mean, just speaking for myself, death is like an absolute downer. Like it super freaks me out. Like I hate, hate thinking about it. How is it literally talking about it right now, us together? It kind of freaks me out. No, seriously, it kind of freaks me out. Like reading your book, the distinct sensation I experienced was that I'm about to vomit. Yeah, it doesn't feel awesome. I'm really, really avoiding it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I be fixed? Can I be fixed? I think you're fixable.

Jodi's fix begins with what she calls the life calculator exercise. The goal is to calculate just how many Mondays you have left. You start with the average US life expectancy, just over 80 years for women and just under 80 for men. You then subtract your current age. Take that number and multiply it by 52. And that's about the number of Mondays you've got left.

So if I did the math right, I think it is 1849. Does that sound right? Yeah. 1849. Please tell me, how nauseous do you feel right now, Lori? Very nauseous. Like, 1849 is a big number, but it's pretty finite. What can I actually fit into 1,849 weeks? I mean, I love movies and try to watch at least one new one a week. Have I really got only 1,849 movies left before I die? No.

I mean, that's probably not even enough time to get through that first scrolling page on Netflix. How many more times am I going to watch favorites like Casablanca or The Big Lebowski or Star Wars? And God, how many more novels do I have time left to read or restaurants to try out or fireworks displays to watch or vacations to go on?

The life calculator exercise was giving me heart palpitations. But Jodi says that's kind of the point. It's a yes and. Yes, I feel really revolted by this and I'm going to book a vacation. The dose is just right enough to take my breath away, but not enough to paralyze me. It's just enough to say, what am I doing? What's this all about? Am I making the best use of my time? And we have to reflexively keep coming back to that reminder because we will get swept up in the current of life.

I get Jodi's point here. I don't want to get swept up in the current of life. But sorry, death still terrifies me. I just hate letting it creep into my thoughts. What I need is someone who can help me think of death as a bit more, I don't know, fun? Like if you're going on a trip someplace, most of us are like excited about it. You know, a vacation that you planned for a year or so, you're like thrilled to go. You know, we could do the same thing with our dying. The Happiness Lab will return in a moment. ♪

I recently traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to visit my in-laws. The Midwest weather was perfect, and my husband Mark and I got some quality time with family we rarely get to see. We shared long, lingering breakfasts, and even got to toast marshmallows over a bonfire. In short, it was pretty much the perfect summer family trip. But while I was away, my house was just sitting there empty. That

That short trip would have been the perfect time to host my house on Airbnb. Hosting on Airbnb is a great way to make a little extra cash when you're not actually using your house anyway. If you travel for business and your house just sits there empty while you're away, you could host on Airbnb so others can enjoy your amazing property.

Or maybe you live in a different city for part of the year because you snowboard or you have work commitments. Your house could be earning you some extra cash rather than just sitting there empty. You can use the extra money you get from hosting for your own future travel. Hosting on Airbnb can be a great side hustle. Plus, it's flexible, and you can host on your own terms. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.

The fall is creeping up on us, but we don't have to give in just yet because summer doesn't stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You can still get out and enjoy 60 miles of beaches, eat in the South's newest foodie haven with over 2,000 restaurants, and have endless fun at hundreds of attractions. Hold on to that sweet summer feeling a little longer at the beach. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Plan your trip at visitmyrtlebeach.com. That's visitmyrtlebeach.com.

Hi, Dr. Laurie Santos here. Sometimes it's the little things that create happiness and peace of mind. What value do the right benefits bring to your employees? Let's talk about what it takes to keep your business competitive. Of course, you need to be responsive to your customers, but it's just as important to look out for the needs of your employees. They're the ones who keep things humming along and fuel your company's success.

So let the experienced professionals at the Hartford provide the quality benefits that your employees deserve. The Hartford Group benefits make managing benefits and absences a breeze, providing world-class customer care to ensure that your employees are treated like people, not policies. The best part? The Hartford offers flexible products and personalized service solutions to meet the many diverse and unique needs of every employee. From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss, the Hartford has got you covered.

So keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. The Bucks got your back. Learn more at the Hartford dot com slash benefits. So lots of people maybe think about death once in a while. I try to avoid thinking about death. How often do you think about death? Every day, multiple times a day. This is Alua Arthur. Alua is definitely not scared of death.

Sometimes when I'm doing something ridiculous, like reaching when I'm in the shower for a towel that's just like a little bit out of my grip and I wonder what would happen if I slipped and hit my head on the edge of the sink. But often I'm thinking about death all the time. We tend to think of stuff associated with death as being creepy. Funeral homes are creepy. Cemeteries are creepy. Morticians are creepy. A. Lewis switched careers to change that.

She used to be a lawyer and hated it. I was confused and lost and hopeless. I had no sense of what I wanted out of my own life. I couldn't figure out what the point was. You know, you get up, you go to work, you pay your bills, you pay your taxes, you eat food, you die. What is the point of all of this? Ailua finally took a medical leave and headed to Cuba.

And along the way, I met a fellow traveler named Jessica, a young German woman who had uterine cancer and was traveling to see the top six places in the world she wanted to see before she died. It was kind of like her bucket list trip. I mean, there was like a little crack in the door and I kicked it all the way open.

I asked so many very, very deep and personal questions and she lit up in answering them. Before you know it, we're speaking deeply about her concerns about the afterlife, if there is one at all, about what she hadn't done in her life, about her sadness, about her disease.

And she shared with me that it was the first time that she'd been able to have a real conversation about her mortality. People would hush her. People would say, oh, don't worry about that. You're going to get better, which is what we do. You have to have hope and you have to have faith. She was like, all those things might also be true, but I am also very sick with a disease that might kill me.

It was the first time that I had been involved in that deep of a conversation about the trajectory of one's life, but it also allowed me to see how disconnected I'd been from the idea of my own mortality. When I started thinking about my death,

The lid kind of came off. Well, who am I? What do I want? What do I value? If the end of my life were at the end of this year, would I be okay to go? Would I be fighting it tooth and nail? What do I still want to do? It started to create a context that I never had before. I was now feeling fully aware that it would end at some point. So knowing that it's going to end soon, how do I want to fill it? It started to shift the dial for me toward success.

creating a life that I would have felt comfortable dying from. And that's a direction toward happiness for sure. But the direction Ailua took might surprise you.

She didn't just laze around on Caribbean beaches all day. She decided to spend her days with people facing their final days. You see, Ailua became a death doula. A death doula is somebody who does all of the non-medical care and support of the dying person through the entire process. And how we define dying person really depends because anybody who's come into recognition of their mortality at some point must also reckon with the fact that they are currently dying.

But overall, we're supporting folks when they have some awareness that death is approaching and want to plan and prepare for it. Aylward describes her journey in a new book entitled Briefly Perfectly Human, Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End.

Much of the impetus for taking on this new role came from watching her brother-in-law face terminal cancer. I remember very distinctly trying to keep track of all the questions that I had. You know, it was my sister's husband. And so she'd be with him in the hospital and I'd be on the computer, click, clack, clack, and trying to get some information, trying to answer these questions. And it was so tough.

It was really tough to navigate that process. I wanted somebody to be there. I wanted somebody who cared, somebody who had enough resources, who had answers to my questions, or at least would say, I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out for you. Death doulas are a lot like birth doulas, those professionals trained to support people having a baby. I just had a really good conversation with a friend of mine who was pregnant, and she was talking all about her birth plan, and she was talking about going to the birthing center, and what she's eating, and what she'd like to experience,

Thinking through the plan helped her quell her anxiety about what it is that's going to be happening. Much like a birth doula, death doulas can support people along the way, help them get clear on their values, what they want it to look like, what kind of support that they need.

And pregnancy isn't the only time we seek out outside support. We're all perfectly happy to have professionals guide us through other big life events. I mean, we have therapists who help us through tough times, math tutors to guide us through calculus, and personal trainers to get us into shape. And so to me, death doulas are a very, very natural and easy addition to that list of people that can support at the time when I think we probably need them the most.

Ailua now has hundreds of clients. And while I wasn't ready to have her plan out my own death just yet, I did want to learn about the wisdom she'd gained from being so very close to death so very often. I mean, she's heard so many people reflect on their hopes and fears and regrets about the end.

How has that changed her own views on life? I'm not a nihilist by any means, but I wonder if we put so much focus on making meaning in order to contextualize life and make it make some type of sense, where there is no sense to be made. And so rather than continuing to try to force things into some box to make it make sense, maybe we can just let go and experience it for what it is, which is a really wild ride. So the meaning can be made out of the little things that bring us joy, the things that make being alive feel meaningful.

like a gift in some capacity. As we continued chatting, I was struck by Elua's constant gratitude.

She just seems so appreciative of the things that I take for granted all the time. There is so much magic in the fact that we live. You know, the fact that we are human, just to be alive, to be present for whatever our bodies' capabilities are, that in and of itself is a miracle, which makes doing the dishes also feel like a miracle, to feel water on my hands, to feel heat, to feel soap, all of that. Grounding in my mortality means that at some point, I won't have access to all these senses anymore.

you know? And so how cool is it that I can feel cold on my hands? How cool is it that I have plates for me to eat off of? That all makes me feel so much more connected to this really strange experience of life. I mean, when you say it like that, facing your death doesn't sound so horrible, things that are happening in the present moment. But right now it still feels a little terrifying. I'm not going to lie. I mean, are you still scared by it? Or is it like, what are the emotions that it brings up for you?

Curiosity, mostly. I'm really, really curious because all of the questions around it remain a mystery. You know, I don't know when it'll be. Maybe it is just a really fantastical ride through the universe and then there's no more consciousness. Or maybe the afterlife, if there is one, is like this really glorious place of...

existence. I have no idea. And so I'm curious about it. I was going to say, so you experience that as curiosity, but I experience that as terror. So my usual move when I don't know something is to like check, right? So I'm going to a restaurant and I'm thinking, oh, I don't know if they have a good cocktail menu. I pull out my phone and I like check the cocktail menu. You know, I'm going to a new doctor and I don't know how good he is, right? Like I look up and try to check on these things. But I think one of the scary things for me about death is like

Seems like you can't do that with death. You just don't know. You can't. You don't know. And so talk about how you can kind of sit and allow that uncertainty. Rather than imagine the worst possible scenario, I imagine one that brings me some comfort.

I imagine something that makes me feel good about it because I don't know and we can't know. And what we tend to do is flood the uncertainty with dread and fear. And the opposite could also be true. Like if you're going on a trip someplace, most of us are like excited about it. You know, a vacation that you planned for a year or so, you're like thrilled to go. You've never been there before. Maybe you've read some reviews. And I mean, I think a good review about death is that nobody who's been there has ever been back. Right.

They stayed there. They must love it. They must love it. It must be a good time. So you're going on a trip. You've researched maybe like the food there, hotel, what you're going to do while you're there. You get on a plane. You have no idea what's to come when you land. Yet we anticipate that joyfully. We could do the same thing with our dying.

Every day we don't know. I wake up not knowing if it's going to rain, whether or not I'll need to pee on my way to work. We don't know. We don't know anything about this life. So we already are really masterful at navigating the unknown. We keep navigating it. Plans change and we shift. We adapt. We get divorced. We adapt. We get a new job. We adapt over and over and over again.

This remarkable capacity to adapt is what the psychologist Dan Gilbert has christened our psychological immune system. Just as we have a physical immune system to protect our bodies from physical threats, so too do we have a psychological immune system designed to protect our mental health from psychological threats. When uncertain moments come up, like a divorce or a scary diagnosis or a struggle at work, our psychological immune system unconsciously takes over to help us adapt and thrive through the uncertainty.

Ailuo was reminding me that when it finally comes time to face the scariness of my own death, my psychological immune system will be there to help me adapt, just like it always has. We know how to do it already, and so we could attach the same perspective that we use on living for our dying, that when the time comes, I will adapt. Chatting with Ailuo was reminding me that I'm stronger than I think, even when it comes to facing death.

So when we get back from the break, I'll get even more hardcore in my quest to embrace mortality. I'll go on a death safari right in my own neighborhood, and I'll attempt to stare my impermanence straight in the face. Okay, so heading over to the mirror. Yeah, that's my aging 40-something body. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

I recently traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to visit my in-laws. The Midwest weather was perfect, and my husband Mark and I got some quality time with family we rarely get to see. We shared long, lingering breakfasts, and even got to toast marshmallows over a bonfire. In short, it was pretty much the perfect summer family trip. But while I was away, my house was just sitting there empty.

That short trip would have been the perfect time to host my house on Airbnb. Hosting on Airbnb is a great way to make a little extra cash when you're not actually using your house anyway. If you travel for business and your house just sits there empty while you're away, you could host on Airbnb so others can enjoy your amazing property.

Or maybe you live in a different city for part of the year because you snowboard or you have work commitments. Your house could be earning you some extra cash rather than just sitting there empty. You can use the extra money you get from hosting for your own future travel. Hosting on Airbnb can be a great side hustle. Plus, it's flexible and you can host on your own terms. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.

This is Dr. Laurie Santos from the Happiness Lab. While it's crazy hot out, the fall season can creep up on us. We don't have to let that happen yet because summer doesn't stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You can still get out and enjoy 60 miles of beaches, eat in the South's newest foodie haven with over 2,000 restaurants, and have endless fun at hundreds of attractions. Hold on to that sweet summer feeling a little longer at the beach, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Plan your trip at visitmyrtlebeach.com. Hi, Dr. Laurie Santos here. Sometimes it's the little things that create happiness and peace of mind. What value do the right benefits bring to your employees? Let's talk about what it takes to keep your business competitive. Of course, you need to be responsive to your customers, but it's just as important to look out for the needs of your employees. They're the ones who keep things humming along and fuel your company's success.

So let the experienced professionals at the Hartford provide the quality benefits that your employees deserve. The Hartford Group benefits make managing benefits and absences a breeze, providing world-class customer care to ensure that your employees are treated like people, not policies. The best part? The Hartford offers flexible products and personalized service solutions to meet the many diverse and unique needs of every employee. From supplemental health benefits to coverage for life and loss, the Hartford has got you covered.

So keep your workforce moving forward with group benefits from the Hartford. The Bucks got your back. Learn more at thehartford.com slash benefits.

Like, I don't like anything that's finite. Like, I don't like when a meal ends. I don't like when a vacation ends. I don't like when a really good television series ends. And so the idea that I might end is, like, really uncomfortable for me. It's difficult to think of myself as finite. Dath Dula Aalua Arthur is very gently helping me work through my thanatophobia.

My drive for life is big, and that makes it hard to also release and to let it go when I love it so much. But I think about this all the time because when we say we love something, I can't love it and also not love the end of it. My end is a part of my life. If I'm going to love my life, I've got to love it all. This idea of loving it all is something we talked about on this podcast before. We tend to poo-poo experiences we don't enjoy, feelings like sadness, anxiety, and fear.

But study after study shows we'd be better off embracing the tough stuff in life rather than pushing it away. Like death, painful experiences are just part of what there is to love. They are part of the human experience. Whole humans feel a whole host of emotions, and none of them are bad or wrong. They're just maybe a little bit more difficult. So at least reframing to think of it as just a part of what it's like to be human, that supports me a lot. Like even on my tougher days, when I'm feeling like I'm in the trenches, I'm

I often remember that this is just part of what it means. This is just how it goes. And I think another interesting thing about like recognizing the temporariness of these negative emotions, temporary like because you're going to die, is it can actually make you enjoy them more in a weird way. Right after I finished your book, I kind of had this weird stomach thing. It had nothing to do with your book.

by the way. It was a separate eating incident. But because I had just been thinking so much about my impermanence, I like greeted what I would normally think of as a not good sensation very differently where I thought, huh, how curious that I'm experiencing something. I'm experiencing something that feels really intense. Kind of brought with it a sort of

kind of strange gratitude for something that I wouldn't have had any gratitude for normally. Is this the kind of thing you see in some of the people you work with? I've been noticing that more and more, yes. And also a way to hold like the difficult stuff very, very gingerly, you know, because often when people are dying, there's a whole lot of things going on in the body. Hopefully the pain is well controlled, but the body's doing things that we're not familiar with. We can't control it at all.

and holding it very, very lightly. Today, the optic nerve is not working. Or today, this is what I'm experiencing, does allow folks to move through the process, I think with a little bit more grace for themselves and for their dying. I told Elua that I do want all the benefits that come with accepting my mortality. The research suggests it'll make me more compassionate. It'll encourage me to be more mindful. And it'll push me to achieve stuff that I really want to achieve in life.

But I explained, I really hate the idea that I'm going to die someday. And that is when Ailua hit me with a truth bomb. Death isn't some distant appointment off in the future. I'm actually deep in the process of dying right now.

Alois says, "I need to get used to that idea." Because if we can get more comfortable with the fact that living and dying is also happening, and which will be happening all the way up until we're actually dead, I think it maybe eases a bit of that fear like one day I'm going to be dying, no you're dying right now. So noticing the living and dying things that are around our environment. Alois suggested an exercise to help with this, one that I tried out on my morning walk to my favorite coffee shop.

I took my usual path, but this time I tried to notice all of the signs of dying that I normally ignore. I saw the gorgeous irises in my neighbor's yard that had wilted and turned brown. That plaque commemorating a fallen soldier from World War II. A banana peel rotting on a compost heap.

I was shocked to realize there were lots of signs of mortality all around me. Noticing these things helped me remember that in the grand scheme of things, I'm not so different from that rotting banana or dried out flower. And for the first time, this death awareness didn't make me nauseous. This time it felt more like awe or connectedness, a reassuring sense that I'm just a small part of some larger whole. So, win, I guess. What next?

Another exercise that I sometimes encourage people to do, which can be tougher, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it, is to spend a little bit of time in the mirror, looking at yourself, looking at your body. I have a lot of mirrors in my house. And at first I thought I was just painfully vain. But I think that...

I really enjoy seeing myself and also noticing the aging that's occurring all the time. And I'm noticing the changes and approaching them without judgment as best as possible, but rather with some awe and some curiosity. My grades are popping off right now and I'm

I find it fascinating. Like, look, look, look at this body. All the changes it's already been through. And death is going to be just another change that the body's going through. But all the changes it's already been through, like start, start steeping ourselves in the fact that these bodies are very temporary beings. They're fragile. Okay. So heading over to the mirror. Yeah, that's my aging 40 something body. Getting some sags where there were not sags before.

Definitely seeing that my skin is not what it used to be. The mirror exercise was much more uncomfortable than the death walk. But ultimately, I was able to experience a sense of awe at how the passage of time was changing my appearance. Yeah, fascination. Curiosity.

Guess my grays are popping off too. So yeah, got through the mirror exercise without barfing. I'm going to call that another death awareness win. Here's the additional stuff that I think might be a little confronting is to look at yourself in the eyeballs and repeat to yourself, I'm going to die. Oh God. A couple of times, two or three times. Take deep breaths in between, okay? I see you smiling. That's not a smile. It's like a fear grimace. Fear response.

Yeah. Okay, here goes. I am going to die. I can't even look at myself in the eyes when I say this. Mirror exercise 2.0 was way, way tougher than just staring at some gray hair. Let's try some psychological distance. Laurie, you are going to die. Full disclosure, I found it existentially overwhelming at first, but after a few mornings trying it out,

Okay, it helps if I close my eyes. I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to die. This exercise required a lot of bravery, but it also hit exactly the kind of death awareness dose that psychologist Jodi Wellman recommended earlier. A practice that does take your breath away, but at the same time helps to inspire change. An astonishing life doesn't just happen to us. We have to take action towards it, but sometimes taking that bold step, it does take courage.

It's not exactly fun to remember that you're finite. Mortality is a bummer, and thinking about it does feel like a gut punch. But the science shows it's a gut punch with a whole host of psychological benefits, ones that I'm beginning to notice and appreciate. Reflecting on death has helped me realize that there are lots of spots where I'm just phoning in my life. My days are usually busy and productive, but I don't always feel like I'm really living. Thinking about my mortality has helped me remember the people and places that light me up,

And realizing I have so few Mondays left has made me start scheduling stuff I really value. I've shifted from passive to active mode. I bought a ring with that Latin phrase on it. And Jodi kindly sent me a ceramic skull from her collection.

It hasn't come easy, but I've learned that a little bravery facing the tough stuff in life and in death goes a long way. Which reminds me, we've now come to the end of this season of my grappling with the happiness challenges that I struggle with the most. I wish I could say that these episodes have turned me into some superwoman who's never stressed or overworked or self-critical. Sadly, I'm still just human.

But I think the strategies I've learned about over the last few weeks have made me a better human, maybe. Ryan, what do you think? Am I a better human? Are you a better human? You've tried so hard during these... We should have planned this out.

I began this season by confiding in my friend and producer, Ryan Dilley. He's been along for this whole project. So now that we're at the end, I thought I'd see how he thought I did. I think you've been really brave. You've done a really good job with some of these really quite tough things. I'm kind of proud of you. Oh, you're proud of me? That's really sweet. I've learned a ton from making these shows with you, but what have you come away with? I mean, lots of things, but I guess the biggest thing is just that I can still change.

but there's still room for improvement and it works if I give myself grace. As your friend, that's such a lovely thing to hear. I mean, I'm so proud that you're able to make that progress. This particular season may be over, but we're not taking our summer break just yet.

We'll have a longer discussion about what I learned from all the shows you've just heard. And we've got some special Olympics-themed shows, too. I'll chat with a runner who fell out of love with the track. And we'll learn some happiness lessons from the coaches who coach the coaches who coach Team USA. This is such a special occasion for me. I've been a big fan, and it resonated so much with me that we were sharing episodes of the Happiness Lab with the coaches we were working with. That's a lot of coaches. ♪

So do come back next time for The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

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